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The Painted Ponies are gorgeous - if you have never seen any of them … I encourage you to see them - one year for Christmas, I bought one for my daughter and one for her mother-in-law at my favorite local art supply store here in Houston - both of them love horses - I love art and giving art gifts for Christmas - no I did not buy the same one for both of them - two very different ones - both quite gorgeous and extremely breakable but they came in boxes and were securely wrapped in packing to protect them. They both liked them very much which I expected since both love horses.

I saw some of the lovely Cow Parade at the Art Store but decided that I was not sure enough they would like the cows to buy them!

Collecting figurines is something that my grandmother did - when I was a kid, she had all kinds of what-nots - little birds, squirrels, rabbits, dogs, cats, some glass shoes, a few tiny thin white glass doll size cups & plates - bunches of different little figurines & dishes - I think most had been broken or lost over the years before we put her in the nursing home because most of them were nowhere to be found then - they were not valuable pieces except in sentimental value - she liked the kind you could find down at the dimestore - they were probably very similar to what you can find today at most any Dollar store - inexpensive but lovely to look at dust collectors.

The good news is that I never had to dust her collection - clumsy me would have broken them all nearly just looking at them let alone trying to dust them. I remember she had an adorable little painted teapot and cup set - probably doll stuff meant for a child - very similar to some glass tea sets I saw over at the Family Dollar store last Christmas in the toy aisle - though my thinking is why on earth would anyone in their right mind give glass to a small child to play with? I remember that my toy dishes and cups were metal - non breakable - they too were painted quite prettily but they would not break if I played with them. The silverware was some kind of easily bendable shiny metal - probably aluminum. I think the plastic these days is probably much safer - the cup handles were quite sharp and a hard metal that didn’t break on my cups - they went out to a point - a triangle shape with a hole in the middle for tiny little fingers I guess - I don’t remember ever getting my fingers actually into the holes though.